A Spoonful of Sugar

At New Year, I decided that I'd try growing some fruit and vegetables this year. We're now in May, so the time seems ripe for a bit of an update.

My apple tree--pictured above with Dave and Lucas--seems to be relishing its home at the bottom of the garden. It's now a smidge over six feet tall, has plenty of leaves for its size, and has produced the cutest little pink blossom. As our neighbour has a huge mature apple tree in his garden, I'm hoping that the bees drawn to his tree will deign to visit my little one.

I can't remember if I've mentioned it before, but it's a family apple tree, meaning that there are three varieties grafted onto the same rootstock. In my case they're Katy, James Grieve, and Cox. All dessert apples, and all very yummy. I love Cox apples! Family trees tend to yield lighter crops than normal trees, but I doubt this will be a problem for us. I'm not sure that three people could munch their way through a bumper crop of apples!

On the subject of trees... here is our ancient, gnarled and much-neglected plum tree in the wilderness corner of the garden. Its blossom has already been and gone, so I expect that it will be fruiting enthusiastically later in the year. I do wonder if I should be ripping that ivy away from round its trunk and perhaps pruning it, but the crop gets bigger each year so perhaps it prefers to be ignored? I did give it some (very fishy) fertiliser back in April whilst I was lavishing love on the apple tree. So, it's definitely had more care this year than per usual!

My little bay tree lives on the decking alongside my pot of garlic and flat-leaf parsley. I should probably prune it back to its original conical shape and dry out the leaves myself. Fresh bay is such a treat and I still get a real kick out of being able to walk outside and snip some!

The garlic and flat-leaf parsley are my two biggest successes to date. They're both bog standard supermarket purchases. I had space in the strawberry planter last year--birds ate all the young berries. Not a success--so planted out one of those living herb containers. Surprisingly it flourished and it's still going strong this year. The garlic got planted on a similar whim. I just broke up a bulb of garlic, pushed the cloves into the holes of the strawberry planter and left them to it. Judging from the huge shoots, I'd say that the garlic is doing pretty well--wouldn't you?

Indoors I've got some butternut squash seedlings that are growing at an incredible rate. I splashed out on a packet of Cobnut F1 butternut squash seeds. Apparently Cobnut is a fast-growing variety, bred for Britain's climate, and with a small seed cavity so more flesh. I can certainly vouch for the fast-growing part! The seedlings will get planted out at the end of May when all danger of frost will have passed.

So far growing my own fruit and vegetables has been really satisfying. I'm very proud of my small efforts and I can't wait until I can harvest something!

This month's Daring Bakers challenge, hosted by Deborah of Taste and Tell and Elle of Feeding My Enthusiasms, is Cheesecake Pops. Or, as I like to think of it, cheesecake-onna-stick.

My love of cheesecake is legendary and of course, I'm more than a little fond of chocolate, too. Alas, I'm firmly back on the Weight Watchers bandwagon, so making the cheesecake pops, while great fun, was absolutely tortuous. Still, I valiantly baked and dipped my pops without sneaking any "little tastes." I did taste all the different pops after dinner, and as they're very, very more-ish, I shall be packing the rest of them off to work with Dave tomorrow morning!

I made three-fifths of the cheesecake batter and baked my cheesecake in an 8x8-inch ceramic dish for 40 minutes and it set beautifully. It had just gone from jiggly to firm in the centre when I pulled it out and this meant that when it came to scooping the balls, it rolled really well.

It definitely pays to think up flavour/topping ideas before you put the cheesecake balls in the freezer. I came up with some fun ideas for the centre of each ball by which time the pops were solidly frozen, and pressing chopped stem ginger into the balls would have been much easier before they were frozen!

Stem ginger pops

I love the combination of hot ginger with smooth dark chocolate, so this one was a real winner for me. Next time round I'll press even more minced ginger into the cheesecake as I found myself wanting it to be really hot.

Limoncello pops

First dipped in a limoncello-spiked lemon jelly, then in white chocolate, these pops had a great flavour but the jelly had a disappointingly icy texture. Still quite delicious, though.

Toffee pops

Dipped in dark chocolate and quickly rolled in chocolate-toffee pieces, these were awesome. I had wanted to use Dime bars, but couldn't find any, so instead substituted Cadbury Chomp Bars which are similar but chewy rather than crunchy.

Classic cheesecake pops

Dark chocolate and a roll around in crushed Digestive biscuits equals classic cheesecake flavour in my book. The biscuits were salty in comparison to the cheesecake and chocolate, making this my absolute favourite of the bunch.

Overall, these were a huge success. I reckon that they'd make the perfect party dessert for kids and adults alike, so I'll definitely be making them again. Thanks for choosing such a great recipe, Elle and Deborah!

When The Silver Spoon's English translation first hit bookshops in 2005, I leafed through it and thought that it was perhaps the most tedious and uninspiring cookbook on the market. I couldn't understand how this could be a classic.

Almost three years later I found myself leafing through a copy in Waterstones--mainly because their Italian section was absolutely dire--and nodding thoughtfully at many a recipe. Perhaps my tastes have undergone a marked change in the last few years? I didn't think they had, other than my new-found love of both fresh fennel and fennel seed. At any rate, I'm now a big fan of The Silver Spoon, especially this recipe: Involtini di Pollo alla Salvia, or, chicken and sage rolls, wrapped in pancetta.

I love the sheer simplicity of this recipe; to me it encapsulates what Italian food is all about. Great ingredients, treated simply.. yielding amazing results. Plus, surely any recipe that includes pancetta has to be gorgeous?

This is a very friendly recipe; it'll cosy up to just about any carb that you care to pair it with. Previously I've tried some buttery little new potatoes, and also a carrot and swede mash. This time round I decided to do a roasted butternut squash purée (spiked with a little grated nutmeg) which worked really well with the smokiness of the pancetta. The green beans and squiggle of balsamic glaze balanced things out nicely.

Continue reading "Involtini di Pollo alla Salvia" »

'Twas Dave's birthday last week and as is traditional in our house, he got to choose his own birthday cake.

After a surprisingly short deliberation--I take days to decide--he settled upon coffee and walnut cake. I was pretty sure he'd go for that, but still plied him with recipe books in the scant hope that he'd go for something really elaborate.

The coffee and walnut cake is beloved of many a village fete and is quite charming in its simplicity, however, I couldn't resist fiddling a little with the presentation to make it a little more birthday-esque. Left entirely to my own devices I'd have been tempted to play with different blends of coffee in each component of the cake, and perhaps forsake the buttercream filling in favour of a mousse or bavarian cream. Individual coffee cakes served with a scoop of walnut ice-cream would be fab, too. However, this was Dave's Cake, so I behaved myself!

My vast collection of baking equipment still lacks useful things such as an icing turntable and an offset spatula, so the icing on the side of the cake looks a little... shoddy, however I was quite pleased at my ingenuity in using an olive dish to form a well for a quick coffee glace icing. (Coffee plus sieved icing sugar. It doesn't get simpler than that!)

The birthday boy greatly enjoyed his cake and was generous enough to share a few slices, so I can report to you that the coffee buttercream--and indeed the sponge itself--were positively mild-mannered compared to the bitter caffeine jolt that the pool of glace icing provided. I didn't just want a colour or textural contrast, I wanted a much more aggressive coffee flavour. A bit of an edge, if you will. Despite the extra boost to the coffee flavour, the walnuts weren't overpowered. Perhaps this is because I toasted the walnuts that I chopped for the sponge?

Happy birthday, babe!

Continue reading "Coffee and walnut cake" »